Poetry Sample - Signifying Nothing

Commission: Poem

Prompt: Write about any of the following pieces of literature: The Sound and the Fury, Moby Dick, Frankenstein.

Signifying Nothing

while reading William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, a masterpiece of literature

as together we hopped in time, seeking

quarters, the bones of our dog, answers to

the absence, where we knew of weddings as cause

for loss, and sickness, and dirtied panties

of our fallen sister, and even though she’s no

longer with us, that didn’t stop him from

bellering ceaselessly, only to get clouted;

You, meanwhile, were dysfunctional, and you knew

it: that the college path wasn’t fit, that

our fallen sister fell alone when falling beside her

was the only answer. Beneath the bridge of the

ticking clock, a million moments later, you followed

after her insidious example: too little; too late.

I, now, the remaining king, squander fortunes, laugh

off the bellering and drowning and defilement

of the fallen sister. But she means nothing more,

not even a name knit to the fruit of her

labor. I cash the checks and run the carriage

past fields of cornflower blue, identical to the

inexperience in his eyes. The house recedes around

the hillside, only for the scraps of us to curve
about and return again. Welcome home.